"When I was 7, my family left Mexico City for Texas in search of safety and opportunity. It’s a story so familiar, it’s practically foundational — the idea that, however imperfect, the U.S. is a place where people from anywhere can start over safely," writes HuffPost contributing writer Ian Kumamoto. "But since Trump came back into office last year, that promise has further eroded." "The anti-immigrant rhetoric has ramped up so forcefully that ICE has been willing to kill American citizens in order to enact its agenda. The threats of mass deportations and violence are working: For the first time since the Great Depression, more people are leaving the U.S. than arriving. Among Gen Z and millennials, a new aspiration is taking hold. On social media, some are saying that the new American Dream is to leave for a better life." "Nowhere is that shift more evident than among undocumented immigrants who grew up in the United States. Brought here as children and raised as Americans, many are now making the life-altering decision to self-deport. Increasingly, younger Mexican deportees are choosing Mexico City." Read the firsthand accounts of two who made that choice at the link in bio